Sasquatch on the Sulphur

“America’s King Kong” could well be in the Lone Star State. Up “in a swampy area that looks prehistoric in the vicinity of Paris, Texas,” to be exact.

At least that where a California group, sponsored by a New Hampshire company, plans on finding The Six Million Dollar Man’s toughest adversary, Bigfoot. And of course it’s all part of a reality tv show to be aired on the Discovery Channel, Capturing Bigfoot. Really. I wouldn’t kid about this stuff.

The Scientology State’s “Bigfoot explorer” C. Thomas Biscardi – who has spied six Sasquatches in the brief span of 34 years! – will lead a highly trained group sponsored by The Granite State Paranormal Society (which is normally active only every four years during presidential primaries).

Plenty of facts are already known about Bigfoot, not all of them culled only from The Legend of Boggy Creek. For instance, based on triangulated cell phone calls, Sasquatches have been proven to be migratory critters.

In olden days, Yeti moseyed along the Chisholm Trail. Biscardi possesses a startling tintype made by famed photographer Matthew Brady of a cowboy-hatted Bigfoot posing with Gus McCall after a long cattle drive, just before they both entered the whorehouse in the background. This photographic relic has been carbon-dated to either 1849 or 500 million years ago, depending on whether a Christian organization did the dating.

Later, Bigfoots took to hoofing it along Route 66, often trying to hitch rides while leaning lazily against Burma Shave signs (which explains why some believe Yetis speak only in bad rhyme), but Eisenhower’s interstate system put an end to that.

Today, Sasquatches, still anxious to get back to the Northwest each summer, slink from Florida, The Copyright by Disney State, to Washington, The $8 Coffee, Sucker! State – mainly by slinking behind trees and avoiding Oklahoma, The State to Avoid Altogether.

Judging from years of accumulated Yeti credit card receipts, BFE Biscardi is pretty sure a Bigfoot will be hanging around Paris on March 28-31. To capture this gigantic, hairy, stinky, yet somehow elusive creature, Biscardi will be armed with all sorts of high-tech devices. Like:

a sophisticated helmet that will deliver real-time audio and video information back to Biscardi’s command post. The trick, of course, is getting a Yeti to put the helmet on. Oh, wait, BFEs wear those … .

electronic devices placed along known game trails, at watering holes like the Sulphur River, and other locations where Bigfoot evidence like footprints and dung heaps the size of UFOs have been found;

the elaborate BF-ELF, Bigfoot Extremely Low Frequency, a receiver that can pick up and monitor the ELFs that BFs apparently emit, mega-low communication frequencies much like those emitted by whales or film students;

the “Talon” – a non-lethal takedown net comprised of Kevlar/nylon and discarded East Texas minnow seines. Launched by remote control, the Talon already has captured six raccoons, a nutria, and an exceptionally tall, hairy, smelly squirrel hunter.

Armed with such modern devices, a Bigfoot capture seems imminent. But what to do with one? Put it on display like King Kong? That didn’t work out so hot, even in Peter Jackson’s remake. Give Sasquatch a basketball? That’s possible – locker room gossip notes that Dirk Nowitzki may actually be a shaved Yeti.

The answer is most likely found by examining the search’s sponsor. With the 2008 primaries looming so large and New Hampshire (of course!) being the launching pad for political aspirants, it’s clear that a Bigfoot is being groomed to be our next president.

After all, it’s a race of one-namers: Obama, Hillary, Rudy, Newt. Two-namers – John Edwards, John McCain – have no chance. Polls already show Hillary at 34 percent, Obama at 26, and Sasquatch at 20 – and the Big Hairy Y hasn’t even officially announced yet.

Should Bigfoot run as a Republican, certainly a Sasquatch would get more votes than a Mormon right now in America. If only he didn’t smell so bad. (Sasquatch, not Mitt Romney. Mitt is a groovy sounding one-namer, however.)

Be the first on your block to get the hot political button of ’08: “Don’t Forgeti – Vote Yeti!” They’ll start passing them out in Paris, Texas, next week. After all, it will probably be no tougher to capture a Yeti in northeast Texas in late March than it will be to get an actual presidential-caliber human into the White House in November.

Mark K. Campbell is the campaign manager for Sasquatch ’08 in that important swing section of Texas, the Golden Triangle of Weatherford, Brock, and Mile Marker 51.

Since 1994, Fort Worth Weekly has provided a vibrant alternative to North Texas’ often-timid mainstream media outlets by offering incisive, irreverent reportage that keeps readers well informed and the powers-that-be worried.